Rich pickings among muck fill coffee pot

Possibly one of the most expensive coffees in the world - at more than $1000 a kilogram - is found only in the droppings of a cat-like creature in Indonesia.

The Kopi Luwak beans are named after the nocturnal Luwak, known in English as a civet, and coffee pickers comb the civet's droppings for the berries, clean them and remove the husk.

Darmawan Widjaja is a third generation coffee roaster who as a child remembers his family selling the rare bean to rich Dutch officials in the 1930s, when Jakarta was still under the rule of the Netherlands.

"It was very aromatic, incredible," Mr Widjaja said. "I don't know what happened in the stomach but it came out so tasty."

Because the coffee bean inside the husk is not exposed to the civet's digestion, it is not clear why Kopi Luwak has such a special taste. One theory is that the civet is simply an expert at choosing the best beans. ");document.write("

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An internet search reveals that Kopi Luwak is being sold by gourmet coffee traders in the United States.

The Alaska-based Ravensbrew site advertises it as the world's rarest coffee with a cartoon graphic of a civet whose tail is being pumped like an espresso maker, producing the precious beans. It sells for $1128 a kilogram.

Kopi Luwak is so rare that some gourmet coffee sellers in Jakarta doubt it exists.

But talks with coffee experts in Java led to Maria Gorehtly, a Chinese spice trader in the north Sumatra city of Medan. "We get it from the forest," she said guardedly in a phone interview. Ms Gorehtly said the civet droppings can cost up to $170 a kilogram compared to $3.41 a kilogram for the high-quality arabica bean.

Such an extraordinary profit margin raises the question of why Kopi Luwak has not been commercialised.

But Ms Gorehtly and other experts said while such a venture has been attempted, the civets, which produce between 10 and 50 kilograms a year, won't oblige in captivity.

Jakarta-based food expert William Wongso does not doubt Ms Gorehtly has the real thing. But he suggested that the retail product may be heavily diluted with cheaper beans.